The War Department and Army Organization
at the Beginning of World War II

When the Japanese dropped their
bombs at Pearl Harbor, War Department organization still reflected the basic
thinking developed from America's experience in World War I. United States
participation in that war had produced its share of organizational
conflicts. The most important of these involved the relation between the
Chief of Staff and the commanding general of the American Expeditionary
Forces, General Pershing. General Pershing had been highly critical of the
operation of the War Department General Staff. In his eyes the Chief of
Staff in Washington "erroneously assumed the role of Commanding General
of the Army."
1
He was convinced that strategic and tactical direction
in the field belonged solely to him and that his only superior was the
Commander in Chief, the President of the United States. He saw the job of
the Chief of Staff in the War Department mainly in terms of providing him
with the troops and supplies he requested.

Just how much authority the Chief
of Staff had to direct the war effort was not clearly defined until three
months before the end of the war.
2
By general order it was then declared
that the Chief of Staffby law
took rank and precedence over all officers of the Army and had authority in
the name of the Secretary of War to issue orders throughout the Military
Establishment. This provision was distasteful not only to General Pershing,
but also to many of the Army bureau chiefs.

As Chief of Staff after March 1918,
Gen. Peyton C. March was confronted with many difficulties other than those
arising from General Pershing's concept of his office. The general staff
system, established in 1903, had been disliked by many Army officials
through the intervening years. World War I provided its first real test.
Faced with the necessity of proving itself, it sought to meet the challenge
by more effective organization, particularly by bringing the administrative
and supply bureaus of the department under close supervision.

The supply responsibilities of the
War Department General Staff were exercised from August 1918 and thereafter
through a Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Division.

[11]

This division was scarcely a
"staff agency" as most Army officers understood that term. The
director of the division, Maj. Gen. George Goethals, was determined to bring
all supply activities of the Army into one integrated organization, based on
functional specialization. In July 1918 he had developed a plan for
centralizing procurement of all but a few items notably aircraft and heavy
guns and ammunition under The Quartermaster General. The Purchase, Storage,
and Traffic Division also took over direct operation of the Army
Transportation Service and created a central storage agency to handle all
military supplies before they were issued to troops in training in the
United States or shipped overseas. On 28 July 1918, Secretary of War Newton
D. Baker in a letter to General Pershing proposed that General Goethals'
authority be extended to include the Services of Supply of the AEF. General
Pershing firmly and successfully opposed this idea, and he immediately
strengthened his SOS by placing his intimate associate, Maj. Gen. James G.
Harbord, in command.3

Much pentup hostility to WDGS
control, especially as exercised by the Purchase, Storage, and Traffic
Division, was released by the Armistice. General March defended its actions
at some length in his report at the end of the war.4 He pointed to the
earlier tendency of each bureau to purchase supplies without concern for the
procurement activities of other bureaus. He mentioned that there had been
nine different methods for estimating supply requirements, five different
agencies storing and issuing supplies, and ten different agencies handling
finances. This had been so confusing that the War Industries Board could not
obtain "adequate information" about the supply needs of the

War Department as a whole. Under
the circumstances, General March said, "a consolidation of procurement,
. . . of storage, of finance, and of transportation, together with a
positive central control of these activities by the General Staff, was
essential . . . to the rapid, efficient, and economical utilization of the
resources of the country for the development of the Army program as a
whole." 5
He admitted that the General Staff, forced by circumstances,
had extended its control at the expense of the supply bureaus. But in any
future war, he continued, it would again be necessary to have a top staff to
direct the many agencies of the War Department. "It can be stated
without qualification that the success of an army in modern war is
impossible without such a general staff." 6

The bureau chiefs of the War
Department were not convinced by such views. When Congress began hearings on
Wax Department proposals for new defense legislation, they directed many
criticisms against the General Staff itself. The Chief of Ordnance, Maj.
Gen. Clarence C. Williams, told a House committee: "I think I may say,
so far as the Ordnance Department is concerned, that not one single
constructive thing has come out of the Purchase, Storage, and Traffic
Division."7 The Chief of Engineers, Maj. Gen. William M. Black, was
equally vigorous in his statement . 8
The director of the Chemical

[12]

Warfare Service, Maj. Gen. William
L. Sibert, said that the "attempt of the General Staff, through the
Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Division, to interfere with or take over
largely the administration of the bureaus, is due to a misconception of the
real supply problem." He complained that the creation of the "P.S.
and T" had led to a "duplication of work" and had tended to
cut the bureau chief out of "control of his own bureau."9

Aside from such criticism the
reorganization of the War Department General Staff proposed after World War
I faced another obstacle. Secretary Baker during the war had, held that his
own office should exercise close supervision over all procurement operations
through civilian personnel. With that in mind one of his first steps had
been to enlist the assistance of Edward R. Stettinius, who in January 1918
was given the title of Surveyor General of Supplies and after April became
Second Assistant Secretary of War. In the meantime Mr. Baker had asked his
assistant secretary and fellow citizen of Cleveland, Benedict Crowell, to
supervise War Department procurement activities. Mr. Crowell was given the
additional title of Director of Munitions.10

Mr. Crowell was deeply perturbed by
America's production performance during World War I. Almost no preparation
had been made before April 1917 for large scale output of munitions. It took
time to convert industrial resources to actual production of guns,
airplanes, and tanks. Then too, the military handling of overseas
transportation was faulty so that much of what was produced never reached
its destination. American manpower in the AEF was effective in a military
sense largely because of the great quantities of armaments provided by the
British andFrench. While the United States
supplied most of the food, clothing, and motor transport for the AEF, it
produced a mere 160 of the 2,000 75-mm. field guns used by American troops
overseas. All 1,000 of the 155-mm. howitzers came from the British and
French. The infant air force used 1,000 pursuit planes provided by the
French.11 This experience made a lasting impression on Crowell. It
confirmed his opinion that close civilian supervision of procurement
operations was necessary in wartime. It also led him to the conviction that
henceforth the War Department should include plans for industrial
mobilization in its defense preparations.

In August 1919 the Secretary of War
presented proposals to Congress for the postwar organization of the War
Department. These proposals had been developed by the General Staff under
General March's leadership. The suggested legislation provided for a General
Staff Corps with a total strength of 230 officers, to be headed by a Chief
of Staff with the rank of general. The Chief of Staff was to exercise
"supervision of all agencies and functions of the Military
Establishment" under the direction of the President and the Secretary
of War. The bill further provided that "the Chief of Staff shall
be the immediate adviser of the Secretary of War" on military matters.
He was to plan, develop, and

[13]

execute the war program and issue
orders to insure the efficient and harmonious execution of policies by the
various corps, bureaus, and other agencies of the Military Establishment.
The obvious intention was to strengthen the General Staff as the top
management organization for the War Department.

Much of the subsequent legislative
discussion therefore centered upon the question of the role of the General
Staff in the War Department. During the hearings, Assistant Secretary of War
Crowell injected a new issue for consideration by Congress when he proposed
to the House Committee on Military Affairs that the functions of the War
Department be divided into two principal elements, a military function and a
procurement function. Although the Secretary of War would be the top
civilian administrator over both, Mr. Crowell proposed separate assistants
for each activity. The Chief of Staff, as head of the Military
Establishment, would advise the Secretary of War on military matters; the
head of a Munitions Department would advise him on procurement .problems.
Yet Crowell did not suggest that the supply bureaus should be placed
exclusively under the Munitions Department. The General Staff would give
orders to the bureaus on supply requirements, troop training, and
distribution of supplies, while the Munitions Department would give orders
to the same supply bureaus on the purchase and manufacture of munitions. Mr.
Crowell's proposal reflected in part an effort to strengthen civilian
control over business matters, in part his belief that it would rarely be
possible to find an Army officer with the experience and skill necessary for
supervising the procurement and production of war materials. He hoped that
an industrialistwith ability and background would
head a Munitions Department.12

In submitting his proposal, Mr.
Crowell omitted any account of his wartime relation to General Goethals,
director of the Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Division. His conception of
his job then had been to throw "full immediate operational
responsibility" on General Goethals. Mr. Crowell did not customarily
give orders directly to the supply bureaus; instead he worked through
General Goethals. He concerned himself primarily with general supervision
and specific trouble spots. As an industrialist, he was especially
interested in the production problems of the Ordnance Department. He also
maintained close relationships with the War Industries Board, which
mobilized the general economic resources of the nation.13 Thus, in
practice, as Director of Munitions, he had actually worked through a General
Staff division headed by an Army officer. The House Committee on Military
Affairs apparently was unaware that Mr. Crowell's proposal was in
contradiction to his own administrative experience in World War I.

Secretary Baker disagreed with
Crowell and opposed his recommendation before the House committee. The
Secretary told the committee that he doubted that a man of wide business
experience could be found, particularly in peacetime, to fill the position
of Assistant Secretary of War to head a Munitions Department. In addition,
the Secretary disapproved of the proposal to give a statutory assignment to
an Assistant Secretary of War because

[14]

this would interfere with the
freedom of the Secretary to assign responsibilities to his principal
associates as 'he saw fit. A future Secretary of War might be an
industrialist who would take more interest in the procurement operations of
the War Department than in its other work. Under these circumstances he
might want an Assistant Secretary who would give principal attention to the
non procurement activities.14

The National Defense Act of 4 June
1920 continued the General Staff organization and the position of Chief of
Staff as created in 1903. Under the direction of the President and the
Secretary of War, the Chief of Staff was to see that the General Staff made
plans for recruiting, organizing, supplying, equipping, mobilizing,
training, and demobilizing the Army of the United States. Other functions of
the General Staff were to include authority to investigate and report on the
efficiency of the Army and its state of preparation for military operations,
to develop plans for the mobilization of civilian manpower for war, and to
render professional aid and assistance to the Secretary of War. The War
Department General Staff was limited to the Chief of Staff, four assistant
chiefs of staff, and eighty-eight other officers, a group about one third
the size recommended by General March.

Congress adopted in part the
recommendation put forward by Mr. Crowell. Section 5a of the law provided
that the Assistant Secretary of War would supervise the procurement of all
military supplies and plan economic mobilization for war. But Section 5a
offered no solution to the basic issue of military versus civilian control
of procurement. It did not establish a civilian dominated Munitions
Department; the Assistant Secretary, whowas to supervise military
procurement, was given no operating staff.

War Department orders issued in
August 1920 implied that the Assistant Secretary would look for staff
assistance to the Supply Division of the General Staff.15 Policy control
without a staff organization was only the shadow, not the substance, of
authority. Unless future Assistant Secretaries were willing to depend upon
what help the General Staff could provide them, they would have no
alternative but to create their own organization.

There was a curious anomaly in the
Assistant Secretary's position. With his responsibility to plan economic
mobilization for the government as a whole, he was required to think far
beyond the War Department. It seems reasonable to assume that the
legislation did not intend to give him supervision of wartime industrial
organization; during World War I, the War Industries Board had been a
separate agency reporting directly to the President. In the event of another
war, it was then probably contemplated that a similar agency would be
created. Nevertheless, the Assistant Secretary's responsibility for economic
planning made him potentially more important than many cabinet members,
possibly even more important than his chief. At the same time he was a
subordinate official in his own Department. And as though to heap confusion
upon confusion, Section 5 of the National Defense Act gave to the General
Staff powers which could easily be interpreted as overlapping those of the
Assistant Secretary;

[15]

it charged the Staff with the
"mobilization of the manhood of the nation and its material resources
in an emergency." Section 5 and 5a of the act of 1920
thus constituted a compromise compounded of ambiguity, confusion, and the
raw material of future jurisdictional disputes.

When General Pershing became Chief
of Staff on 1 July 1921, one of his first acts was to create a board of
seven officers to study the organization of the War Department General
Staff. 16
Its chairman was Maj. Gen. James G. Harbord, who had been General
Pershing's first chief of staff in France, and later commanding general of
his Services of Supply.

General Pershing's thought was to
create a general staff system in the War Department which would closely
parallel the staff he had developed for the AEF in France. After arriving in
France in 1917, he had at once begun to study the organization of the
British and French armies in the field in order to decide on arrangements
for his own command. As General Pershing remarked in his memoirs: "It
required no genius to see that the coordination and direction of the combat
branches and the numerous services of large forces could be secured only
through the medium of a well constituted general staff, and I determined to
construct it on the sound basis of actual experience in war of our own and
other armies." 17

The actual experience of AEF
headquarters in organizing its activities is not relevant here.18
Suffice it to say that this experience provided a major field of study for
the Harbord Board. Yet curiously enough, the precedent of a Services of
Supply as part of the AEF organization was nowhere reflected in the report
of the Harbord Board. Rather, the board
directed its attention primarily to the problem of the position of the
Assistant Secretary of War under the National Defense Act of 1920 and to the
question of his relations with the WDGS. Implicit in this problem was the
delicate policy question of military versus civilian control of the
Department. General Harbord appointed a subcommittee of three to inquire
into this issue. Two of the three members of this subcommittee were General
Staff officers,19 which may account for the fact that it tended to build
up the role of the General Staff and to play down the independence of the
Assistant Secretary.

In its report to the board, the
subcommittee identified seven essential stages in military supply:

1. Preparation of specifications
and drawings.

2. Testing of pilot models.

3. Inspection of facilities to
determine their productive capacity.

4. Acquisition of necessary
materiel through purchase, lease, or other business or legal arrangements.

5.
Production,
including those activities necessary to insure the systematic and orderly
flow of component parts.

6. Inspection, test, and
acceptance.

7. Storage and issue, including all
questions of transportation.

By asserting that the Assistant
Secretary of War was properly concerned with the

[16]

third through the sixth steps in
this process, the subcommittee attempted to guard against the possibility of
that official reaching over into the functions of specifying requirements
and disposing of materiel after procurement. The Assistant Secretary, the
subcommittee held, should supervise the work of the supply bureaus so far as
purchasing, production, and inspection were concerned, while the General
Staff should supervise the remaining phases of supply. The subcommittee
expressed the belief that a formula for coordinating military and economic
policy could be easily devised. The General Staff would determine the
military requirements for defense and war, and would present these to the
"business side" of the War Department, that is, to the Assistant
Secretary of War. Where disagreement occurred between the General Staff and
the Assistant Secretary, the Secretary of War would have to resolve the
difference. The subcommittee further proposed to strengthen General Staff
influence by detailing one or more General Staff officers to work for the
Assistant Secretary. In general these recommendations were in line with the
principle, upheld by the subcommittee, that military efficiency required the
subordination of administration and "business" activities to
strategic and tactical command.

The report of the subcommittee
further stated that the Assistant Secretary had concurred in its proposals.
It should have added, though, that this concurrence was won only after the
subcommittee had yielded to at least three vital modifications affecting the
special status of the Assistant Secretary. The phrase "for the approval
of the Secretary of War" was stricken out of the provision charging the
Assistant Secretary with responsibility for directing procurement and
industrial planning. Ifthis phrase had been retained, the
War Department General Staff would have had a basis for acting on behalf of
the Secretary. The subcommittee failed also in its effort to perpetuate the
ambiguity of the act of 1920, which had given the Supply Division of the
General Staff a toehold in the planning of economic mobilization. The
modified version left the General Staff out of the general planning picture
and ordered that the various branches of the Army request decision on
military phases of procurement from G-4, and "decisions on business or
industrial questions from the Assistant Secretary of War." Finally,
General Harbord withdrew the subcommittee's recommendation for attaching
General Staff officers to the Office of the Assistant Secretary.20

Other recommendations of the
Harbord Board dealt with the organization of the War Department General
Staff into five divisions instead of four Personnel (G-1), Military
Intelligence (G-2), Operations and Training (G-3), Supply (G-4), and War
Plans (WPD). The Supply Division was to direct the calculation of Military
supply requirements and the distribution of supplies. In addition, the
Supply Division was to supervise the construction and maintenance of
buildings for War Department activities, the hospitalization of troops, and
the preparation of the War Department budget. The recommendations of the
Harbord Board, as modified, were accepted by the Chief of Staff and the
Secretary of War, and duly put into effect.21

Perhaps the most important single
consequence of the Harbord Board's work was the creation of a strong general
staff sys-

[17]

tem in the War Department. General
Pershing himself was largely responsible for this development. While his
General Staff was limited in size, it was the top management agency of the
Military Establishment. Many different commands, supply bureaus,
administrative bureaus, and other agencies might function as part of the War
Department, but all received top direction from the General Staff. In the
second place, the Harbord Board recommendations suggested the desirability,
when war seemed imminent, of creating a General Headquarters (GHQ) which
would become a field command and eventually move overseas. This
recommendation was to be partially put into effect in July 1940. In the
third place, the Harbord Board paved the way for a new top office in the War
Department, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War. This acted to some
extent as a brake on the authority of the General Staff. Although War
Department orders of August 1920 had implied that the Assistant Secretary
would carry out his responsibilities through the Supply Division of the
General Staff, the orders of August 1921 suggested an independent
supervisory responsibility. Henceforth, on procurement matters, the supply
bureaus of the War Department were to work under the direction and control
of the Assistant Secretary. The bureaus having supply responsibilities at
this time were the Coast Artillery Corps, the Air Service, the Ordnance
Department, the Quartermaster Corps, the Medical Corps, the Corps of
Engineers, the Signal Corps, and the Chemical Warfare Service. Thus, on
procurement and economic planning, the authority of the Assistant Secretary
of War was established. The jurisdiction of the General Staff no longer
embraced all phases of military supply, as it had before

and during World War I. The supply
bureaus now had two superiors, the War Department General Staff and the
Office of the Assistant Secretary of War.22 Except for this limitation
in the economic field, the influence of the WDGS grew steadily from 1921 to
1940. Assignment to the General Staff Corps became a high military honor
with a promise of later field command for most of those selected.

While no major peacetime
modifications were made in War Department and Army organization after the
report of the Harbord Board, the military organization nevertheless showed
signs of stress and strain which indicated that it might not be able to
withstand another major war without change. The single greatest problem was
the relation of the air arm to the ground arm. Essentially the issue was
whether the strategic and tactical mission of the air forces should be
considered as being different and separate from that of the ground
forces.23 The establishment of

[18]

the Air Corps in 1926, and the
segregation of combat air units as the General Headquarters Air Force in
1935, were steps toward a greater degree of autonomy for the Army's air
component.

Another problem was the
organization of the Army on a geographical basis. The establishment of nine
corps areas in 1920 proved to be unsatisfactory for the tactical training of
ground combat units. Finally in 1932 the corps areas were ,grouped together
under four armies for this purpose, and the senior corps area commander in
the army area became the army commander.

Throughout this period much
attention was paid to the planning of economic mobilization policies for a
future war. In fact, this planning became the chief interest of the Office
of the Assistant Secretary of War. In June 1922 the Secretary of War and the
Secretary of the Navy joined in creating the Army and Navy Munitions Board (ANMB)
to provide a common meeting ground for the discussion of procurement
planning problems and for the development of joint policies. The Army
members generally tended to take more interest in these matters than did
those of the Navy. The board itself, made up of the Assistant Secretary of
War and the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, was never very active. In
February 1924 the War Department also established the Army Industrial
College, where primary attention was given to procurement problems of World
War I and their implications for a future war emergency.24 The staff of
the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War not only cooperated closely
with the staff of the Industrial College, but also after 1926 engaged in the
preparation and revision of industrial mobilization plans, the latest
revised plan being that of 1939.

Congress also began to take an
interest in various aspects of the problem. A War Policies Commission, recommended by President Hoover and set up by legislative action, noted the
importance of procurement planning in its report on 3 March 1932. This
commission, consisting of six cabinet officers, four Senators, and four
members of the House of Representatives, recommended that Congressional
committees review procurement plans every two years. In 1933 the Senate
special committee inquiring into the munitions industry, under the
chairmanship of Senator Gerald P. Nye, extended the scope of its
investigation to take into account the current industrial mobilization
plans.

In spite of the increased interest
of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War in procurement planning,
there was little friction between it and the Supply Division of the General
Staff at this time. The volume of military purchasing was too small to raise
serious jurisdictional problems. The average annual sum available for
augmentation and replacement of arms and equipment in the fiscal years 1926
through 1933 amounted to $25,500; 000, and but $91,000,000 in the fiscal
years 1934 through 1940.25

Nevertheless, one incident in the
1930's revealed that conflict between the Office of the Assistant Secretary
of War and the War Department General Staff was more than a possibility.
Harry H. Woodring, Assistant Secretary of War from 1933 to 1936, was
convinced that the so-called protective mobilization plan of the General
Staff was unrealistic in its scheduling of Army strength at various periods
after

[19]

mobilization. He felt that it would
be impossible to provide the necessary equipment for the contemplated force
within the time period stated in the plan and so he requested the WDGS to
revise its schedule for mobilizing troop strength. This the General Staff
was reluctant to do. After the death of George Dern, Woodring became
Secretary of War, and the conflict flared out into the open. In an attempt
to settle the issue, he directed the General Staff to revise its time
schedule .26

Several changes in Army
organization followed the beginnings of American mobilization in the summer
of 1940. As proposed by the Harbord Board in 1921, a General Headquarters
was activated on 26 July 1940. In October a second change was made when the
command of the four armies and the corps areas was separated. Shortly
afterward, on 19 November, the General Headquarters Air Force was taken from
the chief of the Air Corps and assigned to the recently activated General
Headquarters. Since GHQ was expected to command overseas operations in the
event of war, this move failed to please most airmen.

The proponents of an independent
air force had long been dissatisfied with War Department organization as it
pertained to the air arm. European war experience reinforced their claims
that the plane had its own distinct strategic and tactical mission. This was
partly recognized by Secretary of War Stimson, who stated in his first
report: "The functions of modern air power which have been developed
and demonstrated during this war have vitally affected previously approved
methods of warfare. They have been carefully studied by our own Army and
have powerfully affected our plans and organization." 27
On 20 June
1941 the War Departmentcreated the Army Air Forces which
absorbed both the Air Corps and the GHQ, Air Force. At the same time, all
airfields within the United States were brought under the jurisdiction of
the AAF. Combat planes of all kinds were now separated from Army ground
troops. A separate air force within the Army had finally come into being.
This change in the status of the air arm was the most important alteration
in Army organization between 1918 and Pearl Harbor. By comparison, even the
creation of General Headquarters was of secondary importance.

The organization for the direction
of supply and procurement activities was modified only in a minor particular
after the European war began. On 16 December 1940 Congress authorized the
President to appoint, with confirmation by the Senate, an Under Secretary of
War. In addition, Section 5a of the National Defense Act of 1920 was amended
to give the Secretary of War power to assign procurement supervision to any
of his staff members. To fill the position of Under Secretary, the then
Assistant Secretary of War, Robert Patterson, was nominated and confirmed,
and on 28 April 1941 the Secretary of War delegated his procurement
supervisory duties to the Under Secretary. Meanwhile, as Army procurement
operations expanded during 1940 and 1941, the Office of the Under Secretary
of War (OUSW) grew in personnel strength. Whereas on 1 July 1939 the Office
of the Assistant Secretary of War had a total strength of only 78 officers
and civilians, on 1 November 1941 the Office of the

[20]

Under Secretary of War numbered
1,136 persons, of whom 257 were officers and 879 were civilians.28
Supply activity in the General Staff was likewise growing, and at the time
of Pearl Harbor it required a G-4 staff of about 250 persons, of whom 100
were officers.

At the outbreak of the war with
Japan, the military organization within the United States under the
Secretary of War consisted of five major elements:

First, the top direction of
military activities was vested in the Chief of Staff, assisted by the
General Staff. The volume of General Staff activity had become such that in
addition to the five divisions, each headed by an assistant chief of staff,
there were three deputy chiefs of staff: one for supply, one for
administration, and one for air matters. This last position was held
concurrently by the chief of the Air Forces.

Secondly, there were two major
commands, the Army Air Forces and General Headquarters. The AAF was
responsible for the development and procurement of air supplies, the
training and control of air combat units, and the planning of air
operations. GHQ was responsible for the tactical training of ground combat
units, combined air-ground training, and overall planning for the defense of
the continental United States. Four territorial defense commands, created in
the spring of 1941, provided a skeleton organization for conducting defense
operations.

In the third place, the War
Department in Washington contained the offices of a number of combat arms,
service arms, supply services, and administrative bureaus. The chiefs of the
combat arms Infantry, Field Artillery, Coast Artillery, and Cavalry were
responsible for the operation of training schools and for developing
tactical doctrine for their individual arms. One, the Chief of the
Coast Artillery Corps, also had procurement responsibility for certain
coastal defense equipment and ammunition. The service arms and supply
services were headed respectively by the Chief of Engineers, the Chief
Signal Officer, the-Chief of Ordnance, The Quartermaster General, The
Surgeon General, and the Chief of the Chemical Warfare Service. The Adjutant
General's, Department, The Inspector General's Department, the Judge
Advocate General's Department, and the Finance Department were the War
Department's administrative bureaus.

In the fourth place, there were the
four armies and the nine corps areas. The armies commanded most of the
ground combat forces within the United States, and the corps areas supplied
and managed most of the military posts. The corps areas were also
responsible for performing much of the work of mobilizing a civilian army in
case of an emergency, as they had been doing under the Selective Training
and Service Act of 1940.

Finally, there were a number of
miscellaneous installations reporting directly to the Chief of Staff in
Washington. These included ports of embarkation, certain schools such as the
Command and General Staff School and the United States Military Academy,
disciplinary barracks, and general depots.

Prior to the outbreak of war the
proper role of the Air Forces, the ambiguous position of General
Headquarters in relation to the General Staff and to field com-

[21]

mand, and the uncertain
relationship of the General Staff to the Under Secretary of War in supply
matters remained unsolved problems. These accumulated problems brought about
a reexamination

of War Department organization soon
after the United States plunged into the war. From this study emerged the
reorganized Army which was to fight World War II.